Nearly 8,000 acres of vines were removed in the Lodi Appellation over the past year, according to a new report developed by the California Association of Winegrape Growers this week.
The association, in partnership with regional growers and vintners like the Lodi Winegrape Commission, recently hired Land IQ to develop an in-season, statewide winegrape acreage assessment.
Land IQ — a Sacramento-based agricultural and environmental science firm — has been mapping vineyards for the California Department of Water Resources since 2014 and developed the California Vineyard Mapping Project between October of last year and this past August.
The California Vineyard Mapping Project provides a comprehensive dataset of winegrape acreage across the state and serves as a tool for growers, policymakers and researchers to inform market analysis, sustainability planning and long-term industry strategy, according to CAWG.
The project found that the Lodi appellation has 82,303 standing acres of winegrapes as of Aug. 1, and that 7,991 acres of crop had been removed.
Standing acres include all winegrape vineyards currently planted and in the ground, including bearing, non-bearing, abandoned, minimally farmed, and mothballed crops.
Lodi area wine growers are located in the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Crush Report District 11, which includes San Joaquin County north of Highway 4 and Sacramento County south of Highway 50 and east of Interstate 5.
District 11, according to the vineyard mapping project, has 82,646 standing acres of grapes with 8,083 acres removed.
Meanwhile, San Joaquin County has a total of 67,845 standing acres while 7,976 acres were removed.
The entire state of California has 477,475 standing acres of winegrapes, according to the report, while 38,134 acres have been removed.
Lodi Winegrape Commission executive director Stuart Spencer has been involved with the mapping project since day one, and said it is a very accurate tool that will help his staff understand how many acres are in the ground and exactly where they are growing.
“I’m not surprised by the number of acres removed,” he said. “This report is consistent with what we estimated, but gives us a highly accurate number. The removals in Lodi may be the most by total acres but they are not the most by percentage. Lodi still has the most acres of winegrapes across all regions in California and will continue to produce high quality wines.”
The tool, which can be found at www.tinyurl.com/CAWGmapping, gives association members the ability to view how many vineyards are in each county, crush district and American Viticulture Area.
It also allows members to view active vineyard blocks and recent removals to understand regional change over time, as well as satellite imagery, street views, and topographic basemaps to visualize terrain and elevation factors.
The tool does not show vineyard status such as if it is abandoned or how it is being farmed.
In an instructional video on CAWG’s website, executive director Natalie Collins said the amount of acres removed within the last year does not change to total tonnage crushed in the latest Crush Report.
The CDFA released its preliminary Grape Crush report for in February, and reported more than 2.9 million tons of grapes had been crushed statewide.
Lodi’s District 11 crushed the second-highest amount of grapes at 592,634 tons, but produced the highest amount of fruit for particular varietals such as Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon with 69,885 tons and 138,274 tons respectively.
“I think many growers who operated this year are seeing the conditions of the market (and are) unable to secure contracts,” she said. “None of that is changing with this acreage number being removed. I think this will allow industry experts to go back and look at the data to see what they can refigure.”
While Lodi has pulled nearly 8,000 acres of grapes over the last year, Spencer said growers are pivoting to other crops. He said one of the driving forces behind the amount of acreage removals is larger wineries purchasing in bulk from overseas instead of from local growers.
The equivalent of 1.7 million tons of winegrape has been imported as bulk wine over the last five years, Spencer said.
He added the imports are being subsidized by a loophole that allows wine to enter the US market virtually tax free.
“And much of the imported bulk wine ends up being labeled ‘American,’” he said. “Federal law allows for ‘American’ labeled wine to contain up to 25% foreign wine and still be labeled ‘American.’ It’s reprehensible, and these same wine companies go to great efforts to hide the misleading ‘American’ designation on the bottles and boxes.”
